[UK-CONTEST] Is it time for contest sponsors to introduce an ident rule?

[Bob Henderson]

The IOTA contest was great fun.  Conditions were fair and activity levels
high.  Being a thoroughly inept phone contester I followed my usual path to
the SOHP CW category.  With 20/20 hindsight my activity was weighted too
heavily in favour of rate and not heavily enough in favour of mults.
Still, as George 5B4AGC used to say, "If hindsight were foresight we'd all
be a darn sight."

Band,  Q,  IOTA

80,   108,  31

40,   395,  58

20,   801,  68

15,   823,  67

10,   313,  25

Total, 2440,  249

Score 4,183,200

Many highlights and lots of slick operating.  A fun filled 24 hours.
Though I did need to sleep in on Monday morning.

The one real low light for me was what seems to be an increasing tendency
for run stations to not bother to identify.  I have no doubt they must
identify eventually but on at least a handful of occasions I waited while a
run station made 10 or more Qs without one ID before I moved along
frustrated.  I have no doubt this phenomena must be fuelled by cluster and
RBN.  Stations calling must be doing so based upon data provided by one of
these sources.  The run station happily works all comers presumably
assuming that having called they must know who they are calling.  This is a
mess.

Calls reported on cluster and RBN are not necessarily correct.  Those
taking them at face value may end up penalised for a busted call.  When the
station doesn't identify perhaps those with a cluster or RBN sourced call
conclude it will have to suffice but in doing so they continue to compound
the issue.  The more callers one of these guys gets the less incentive he
has to spend time sending his call.

It might be argued that this is a heads I win, tales I win strategy for the
cynical contester.  So long as he has callers he runs without ID leaving
callers to rely on some 3rd party identification of the station they are
working.  Who loses?  Well so far as I can tell only the callers who bust
his call based on unreliable data.  The offender benefits large.

1.  Improvement in rate due to not having to "waste time" sending his call.
2   Penalties for those giving him points but busting his call.

Surely it is time contest organisers took steps to address this
malpractice?  A rule requiring a call be sent after max 3 Qs could do much
to resolve this issue.

My thanks to all for the Qs and to RSGB for the organisation of this great
event.

73 Bob, 5B4AGN